According to Brown and Knowles (2007) the main purpose of assessment should be the improvement of students learning. Focusing on meaningful learning experiences provides more significant information to drive instruction rather than focusing on the number of facts that students have memorized. Three basic principles that should be employed when developing an assessment training program for teachers are: 1) assessments should be connected to curriculum and instruction; 2) students should actively participate in the creation of their own assessments; 3) assessments should be authentic in order to lead to meaningful learning.

In order to support effective understanding and application, there are some components of assessment literacy that are essential. For instance, an assessment program for teachers should contain the difference between classroom assessments and accountability assessments. That’s because many teachers feel pressured by their administrators to score high in the standardized tests and make “teaching for test” their number one priority. Classroom assessments are comprised by formal and informal procedures that teachers use to make accurate inferences about what their students can or can’t do yet (Brown and Knowles, 2007, p.190). That said, it is also important to present a sub-topic of classroom assessment which is alternative assessments. The latter provides meaningful learning experiences through the creation of students goals. Other advantages of alternative assessments are that it provides choices for students to demonstrate their learning; allows flexibility; provides opportunities for self-evaluation; encourages students’ thinking process development and promote authentic connections. Another important component of this type of training would be the significance of genuine feedback.

Genuine feedback is the key difference between assessment of learning (traditional and standardized testing) and assessment for learning (assessing students so that teachers can help each of them grown cognitively). The point is to demonstrate to teachers that assessment is not only about giving students an A, B or C grade or a percentage number, but most importantly guiding them towards improvement. Routinely assessments and continuous feedback also mitigate the problem of students’ anxiety during accountability tests. Students’ participation in their own assessment should also be covered by an assessment training program. If students can and should participate in how they will learn information, they could and should participate in how they want to demonstrate their new acquired skills. In this way, students actively take ownership over their leaning experience. It is important to invite the teachers to think reflectively about the purpose of assessing their students. In other words, academic growth should not be a “point in time” measurement but a continuous process, thus, the importance of goal creation, continuous feedback, students’ inputs, and assessment-curriculum-instruction integration. “Student motivation is an end result of the powerful connection of curriculum, instruction and assessment” (Brown and Knowles, 2007, p. 189).

An assessment training program should be proposed based on the evidence that today’s teachers know little about educational assessment and many feel pressured by scoring high on standardized tests and end up “teaching for the test” instead of truly measuring their students’ knowledge and guiding them towards academic improvement. The benefits of taking this type training is that staff would be provided with the opportunity to think reflectively about students assessments, meaningful feedback and how to align meaningful assessment and State requirements.

I find global warming an excellent subject to discuss. Maybe the author’s intention was exactly to be thought-provoking, inciting societal changes. Maybe that’s the reason you had so many questions when you finished reading it. It is common knowledge that global warming has affected us in different ways such as climate changing. There are several researches out there with data information that prove the existence of the effects of global warming. Honestly, I don’t believe that planting a garden would be the solution for global warming since the major damage caused to the planet is in industrial scale. Even when multinationals implement social responsibility programs, the pollution scale is exponentially disproportional if compared to the “environmental repair” scale. That said, I’d suggest you to focus on global warming and the ineffectiveness of social responsibility programs.
Just building a garden in your backyard is not going to make up for all the industrial pollution responsible for the carbon dioxide rates of 399 parts per million. You could also discuss about how multinationals take advantage of global warming to promote their trade mark via social responsibility programs.

I’d also suggest you to review grammar and punctuation.

I don’t quite understand your first and third thesis. The second one is pretty much already answered by other scholars.

My peer’s summary

Summary: Article: Michael Pollan, “Why Bother?”

In this article by Michael Pollan, “Why Bother?” we are asked to look into the question of global warming. The author is trying to implant the urgency of what we can do to solve the problem. Is the problem going to be fixed by people making their own choices to help or is it going to be a government push to fix the problem. (?) The article is also covering the point of even if us “Americans” make the changes needed will other places around the world follow the lead and do the same or will our improvements be over powered by other countries’ lack of improvement. We ourpointed out the things that he feels we can do to change, from using areair conditioners less, trying to drive less or trade in your gas guzzling Tahoe’s for more economical battery powered toaster hybrids. Although I feel there are plenty of choices to make, I feel the author picked maybe one of the smallest choices we can of planting your own garden. Planting a garden is great, I agree but, out of all the things we can do I don’t see that being a significant change. How much can planting a garden help? Michael Pollan brings up the “cheap-energy mind” and how everything translates to money, that it will take incentives to make people make the changes needed. We are pointed out threw out the article of “Why Bother” and if you do bother why going green is important. Change your carbon foot print in the world and make your change, stop spending your hard earned money on what other people provide for you and provide yourself with your own home grown garden.

Response:

When first reading this article, I was grasped by the importance of it. Michael Pollan did a great job of bringing the reader into what he feels is a huge challenge for the world to overcome. We are leadon to believe that if we don’t do anything ourselves we could be pushed or forced too. He goes back as far dated as when Al Gore was president, and his urgency in the situation. But just how bad are we? I don’t feel that there were enough statistics stating where we stand today. Although I do agree we need to make changes I also feel after reading the article and speaking about it to others and getting their opinions I feel that the opinions of others steered me away from my original feeling that I should run out and plant my own garden and purchase a hybrid vehicle stop eating meat and never turn on my air conditioner.It took me 20 minutes to read an article that made me feel I should do my part but then it took 5 minutes in a conversation to make me rethink it, after asking others there believes some have made me question is global warming really effecting are daily lives or is it a government conspiracy? We are given the option of planting our own garden and what an impact it will make, but I do not feel there was enough information there about what a garden can do, becausehonestly what can 3 rows of fruit or vegetables in my back yard do (?)and there should have put more in the article to make me feel that it will be worth my while,even though he did go on to tell us that planting a garden can lead to other choices like having your own compost pile but does not go on to provide the reader with what out of our own waste can we use. I do not expect a guide to growing your own garden and making your own compost but feel it left me with too many questions.I was not convinced that by growing my own garden to help global warming, but I was impressed with the fact that if global warming is such a problem and the vast amount of oil and gas we all feel is there went away we would eventually all fall into providing ourselves with our own food. I realize that his point was to grow your own garden but if he wants people to change the way they live their lives and change their carbon foot print he should have focused on some areas that might make a bigger impact. He could have also focused more on what kind of money we can save. He did focus on the incentives some might receive but I want more I want to know what I will gain. For most Americans who have fallen into debt what will this do for me? It is selfish to think about putting money over the condition of the world but in today’s world you almost have to. Even though I have started to change my initial opinion on global warming I have not changed my opinion that we still need to do something, and that’s where I feel the author failed to enforce that even if planting a garden is not what you want to do that there are plenty of options we can choose from. Elaborate on these other options convince me that I can make a change. I do feel this is a great article on global warming and the impact we humans have but feel it left me with too many questions and I will have a lot of research to do to make my own opinion on where I will spend my time helping the cause. I still feel that I am left with the title of the article “Why Bother”?

Thesis #1: How can I “bother” the climate change?

Thesis #2: Is global warming fact or fiction? Or is it a government conspiracy?

The story written by William Faulkner is a mix of suspense and mystery. The narrator speaks on behalf of the town’s collective voice and pictures Miss Emily as a character full of interesting yet strange psychological traits. Besides being a Southern woman who comes from an aristocratic family, who was Miss Emily? Although the townspeople would prefer to see Miss Emily as an idol, the reader could realize that the main character had psychological problems. First, she held her dead father at home for four days in a Freudian denial attitude. Then, when she finally started having a relationship, her insecurity and low self-esteem drove her to buy arsenic and soon after that, her boyfriend mysteriously disappeared. Those elements together would’ve given us an idea of what was happening; however, other elements such as the tax issues and the judgmental tone towards African – American people and women distracted us. Those facts, added to the chronological aspect of the story were mixed, which caused the diversion of the reader’s focus.

The setting reflects Miss Emily’s inner situation. A dark and dusty house, humid and moldy furniture and appliances, antiques, faded colors, tarnished silver and gold objects; all of that, transmit the feeling of an individual who was trying to resist change. Miss Emily wanted to ignore the world and its modifications. Emotionally, she could not face changes. She was buried in her house, in the memories of her beloved father, in her own confused feelings and in her dusty furniture. The elements that composed the physical setting conveyed a gloomy and mysterious mood to the reader. The narrator uses “we”, which denotes a first person plural point of view. The narrator seems to know Miss Emily very well since she/he mentions details of her house and even evaluate Miss Emily as being a “[…] tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town[…]”. The narrator makes clear that Miss Emily was an alive entity who incited curiosity and even fear in the population of Jefferson.

One could attempt to analyze Miss Emily personality going through several different paths; from a person who suffers from conditions such as Schizophrenia to the extreme of classifying her as a sociopath or necrophiliac. Nonetheless, I’ll attempt to sketch her personality profile based on Freudian concepts such as Defense Mechanisms, Oedipus Complex and a concept coined by Kenneth Adams, the Covert or Emotional Incest. Throughout the story, besides a great-aunt and two distant female cousins, Miss Emily did not have any feminine figure cohabiting with her. That makes one wonder how the relationship between Miss Emily and her father was structured without the role of a “mother” between them throughout the years. I believe that her father would establish and reinforce this emotional incestuous relationship by attributing Miss Emily the role of “wife”, which might not have been physical but psychological. That is demonstrated in the story by “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away […]”. When her father died, Miss Emily clung to the body in denial of his death for four days. She was extremely attached to the figure of the father in different aspects and she would fiercely grieve her idealized “husband”. For instance, “[…] none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such,” denotes the idealization that Miss Emily would have about her father. In order to interest her, a man would have to resemble her father; not physical, but psychological resemblance. As one could admit, it would be extremely difficult for Miss Emily to fulfill her idealization. As a consequence, she had many years of mourning and developed into an egotist, conceited, attached and perverse individual. As such, the house became her refuge, a place stopped in time, where she could revive her memories and feel psychologically comfortable. After years of grieving, she finally met a person with the possibility of staying with her. Nonetheless, one of Miss Emily’s traits was insecurity, which could also be extended to fear of loss. In an attempt to resolve the situation, she carefully prepared her bridal room and planned Homer Barron’s death. At that point, her contact with reality was disrupted and she started living under the illusion of having Homer Barron as her husband. As opposed to what happened to her father, no one knew Homer Barron was dead. This time, the residents of Jefferson would not be able to take Homer Barron away from her since everyone thought he’d abandoned Miss Emily. Meanwhile, all the gossipy and narrow minded people from the town of Jefferson could not realize that Miss Emily was not just a mere entertaining object but, she was mentally disturbed.

To conclude, I strongly believe that Miss Emily was a lady who had a dysfunctional relationship with her father since her childhood. She and her father had this emotional incestuous relationship in which the father attributed her with duties of a spouse. Later in her life, she started seeing her father as if he was her “husband”. They might have never had a physical incest, but the emotional burden was placed and disrupted Miss Emily’s life until the end. That transformed her in an egotist, attached, insecure and perverse woman.

This ad ” Believes” was created for the presidential campaign of 2012 in which President Obama was trying to be re-elected. The United States’ social scenario featured the consequences of the housing collapse and the credit crisis of 2007. Americans and their dreams were stopped by the great recession; therefore, it was necessary to re-construct the American Dream. It was necessary to fuel people with hope of a country that could recover from the housing bubble through hard work and a more social oriented public administration. The target audience was the US middle and lower class. The middle class’ economic growth was paralyzed by the great recession while the lower class expected to socially move upwards. Middle and lower class citizens were eager to see governmental changes since many lost their jobs, houses and credit due to predatory lending practices. With that said, it would be quite interesting to tailor a presidential campaign based on strong national cultural elements such as the American Dream. The “Believes” advertisement predominantly used pathos in order to achieve its goal which was gaining voters through the re-conceptualization of the American Dream.

The ad “believes”, used an “inspiration” style that stimulated potential voters to not only vote for President Obama but also conquered more voters through the word of mouth; which by the way is one of the most powerful marketing tools. The ad started the re-conceptualization of the American Dream, which later was re-stated by President Obama in one of his speeches (Wyatt- Nichol 271). The President repeatedly and emphatically said: “I believe”. This statement sets up what will be the re-conceptualization of the American Dream. The ad’s objective was to persuade the target audience by appealing to their emotions. It aimed at creating identification between President Obama’s ideals and voters. I consider that pronouncing emphatically words and phrases generates contagious motivation and hope. The ad featured a new beginning; the sun was rising, the alarm clock was ringing, a brand new day was just starting and Americans were getting ready for another work day. It transmitted a feeling of renewal and restart. That made the listener feel excited, looking forward to positive changes. One can clearly see an appeal to pathos through the incitation of emotions.

Other factors such as people expressing approval, the word “FORWARD” was appearing in the end of the ad and the President said: “we are a nation of workers and dreamers”, brought together tangible and intangible realities. The President presented his ideas and ideals and those induced Americans to think of their capability to move forward. There was a mix of emotion and logic; Americans can perfectly carry out their dreams through hard work. The appeal to ethos could also be identified since the United States is recognized and respected worldwide by its hard-working people.

One can also observe the appeal to logos since ideas such as “economic growth through a wider middle class” were presented; however, the ad predominantly focused on persuading by appealing to people’s emotions. In addition, when the President brought together tangible and intangible realities, clearly represented by the words “work” and “dream”, one can perceive how the concept of the American Dream is present (Wyatt- Nichol 272) and acts as an important element during President Obama’s campaign and consequently re-election.

To conclude, I strongly believe that the ad accomplished its motivational goal through the usage of pathos as a rhetorical strategy. It brought up the American Dream elements that are entrenched in Americans’ lives. In addition, President Obama not only brought up the American Dream but also re-defined it.